Residents woke up to quite a shock Thursday morning after an activist art collective known as INDECLINE hung effigies of clowns dressed in Ku Klux Klan robes from a tree in Bryan Park in Richmond, Virginia.

Richmond police had the park completely shut down as of 8 a.m.

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They hung effigies of clowns dressed in KKK robes in Bryan Park "in protest of the White Nationalist uprising in the United States" pic.twitter.com/Lxzmb3axp6

In a statement, INDECLINE said they first got the idea for the display in the Spring of 2017 in protest of the White Nationalist uprising in the United States. They chose Richmond because of its "infamous legacy of being the capital of the Confederate South."

In all, eight effigies were hung from the tree, with one wearing a placard saying, "If attacked by a mob of clowns, go for the juggler."